5 Things Made To Sabotage Your Baby’s Sleep And Your Sanity

As you balance that sleeping 15-month-old on your shoulder, you’re grateful you don’t have to manually lock your car as you try to accomplish the utmost parenting ninja trick: the car-to-crib transfer. But with a bleating BEEP BEEP!, your child awakens anyway, leaving you with a babe who slept for six minutes and will, under no circumstances, go back to sleep. Maybe ever.

2. The doorbell

To all the well-meaning neighbors with banana bread and the UPS guy with all those Amazon Prime deliveries that you’d ordinarily be pleased to receive: there is a time and place for these things. Oh, what time? Who the hell knows? The baby sleeps when the baby sleeps, and far be it from you to try to put the wee ones on a sleep schedule that they’ll agree to.

3. The coffee grinder

Sweet Jesus, you need coffee. You’ve just managed to get Tiny down to sleep for her early morning nap. It’s 8:00 a.m. You need the coffee. But, that whirling dervish of a machine is sure to wake her. Fail. You don’t get your coffee today. Prepare for severe sluggishness for the next 10 hours. Next time, you will learn to grind the beans before you put her to sleep. Though, heaven forbid you freak Tiny out with all that cacophonous racket.

4. Any business without a drive-thru

You have So. Many. Errands. to do. But the little fella has fallen asleep, yet again, in his car seat. Today is not your day! You do not get to cross things off your checklist. You do not get to pass Go! You don’t collect a thing (except coffee. There’s always coffee). Per #3 above, you also require this potent elixir of sustainability. You will know where your nearest coffee drive-thrus are and get everything you can there: Breakfast? Yup. Lunch? Yup. Dinner? Yup. Coffee? Absolutely. Maybe they have toothpaste or your prescription refill. Doesn’t hurt to ask. Tip extra. You consider this a successful errand-running day.

5. Doorknobs

Some enterprising entrepreneurs have created doorknob cozies for this very thing, in hopes that the ridiculously loud click of the door doesn’t wake the sweet sleepy one. But save that — and who knows if those cozies even work — why bother closing the door at all? You think you are a sneaky success for being able to coax her into the dream world, only to find that same babe hollering when the immense click of the doorknob wakes her. But leave the door open and fall prey to the following rules: 1. All walking throughout the house should be done in socks and on tiptoe 2. There will be no cleaning, eating on dishes, or clanking about 3. Don’t flush the toilet. 4. Don’t turn on the lights.

This is a good time to either meditate or partake in that incredibly wise bit of advice to sleep when the baby sleeps.